On the Square Today

In 2008, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly released a survey on how Americans view their countrys relationship to God: Sixty-one percent agree that America is a nation specially blessed by God, it revealed, and 59 percent believe the United States should be a model Christian nation to the world.

These are the kind of results that inspire many Americansand make others shudder with fear.

The EU has been suffering a long, drawn-out economic disaster, but its economic woes hide a deeper rot: a lack of democratic accountability. My wife and I lived in Lisbon this past year while I studied international law, and most of the Portuguese people we spoke with no longer have illusions of true self-government. They assume that at the end of the day their national leaders follow the call of higher powers in Brussels, over which the people have no control. Political apathy reigns.